The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1887-09-17
A posTHuMous BEARD.
An Undertaken Says That the Whole
of a Man Does Not Die at Once.

1
of Man Does Not Die at Once.
From the San Frdncisco Examiner.
81 read in Sundays Examiner an article
headed Shaving Dead Men,, copied from
the Chicago Inter Ocean," said an Oakland
undertaken claiming to have dug deeper into
the mysteries of his profession than most OF
bis melancholy brotherhood. 1T describes
| a barber, who had shaved many corpses,
| speaking in jeering words of an English
dude who cautioned him against taking the
stubble Off the neck of his defunct relative
upward, instead of downward, because the
hair would afterward grow improper The
barber evidently supposed that the beard
,ased to grow after a mans death but that
is not the case at all. II the body is pre-
| served from decay by being buried in an
alright casket, the beard win not die, but
Will go ON growing just SO long as the cor
ruption is averted. | do not think that the
| hair of the head ever increases in length,
but you know even in life a mans locks
become scanty, and finally disappears alto
gether as he grows old, while his age usually
only serves to make his beard thicker and
longer. can vouch for the vitality of the
hair that spronts from the skin.
when the war closed | was an under
taker in Richmond, Va, and l was en-
| ployed to direct the funeral of we'll
known Southern merchant who had freely
| lavished his large fortune in aiding the Con
| federates in their hopeless struggle. He died
of something to which the doctors could
give no name, but which the family, who
were obliged to go to the North to enable the
sons to earn a livelihood, had no hesitation
In calling broken heart, Loyalty sacrificed
to the lost cause He was AN elderly man,
| who had always kept his face clean shaved,
and after his death his widow, who was
many years younger than her husband de-
sired that barber should remove the bris-
| ties that had grown upon his skin while he
was in the state of mental indifference to-
ward outward things that is the forerunner
of such death as his.
His face, if | may use the expression,
was as smooth as new-laid egg when he
was stretched in a cast-iron coffin, which
was then Theoretically sealed and placed in
the family vault, which, after the custom
of many Southern people at that time, was
on the plantation owned by the family. The
remains were the last deposited there, for
the estate passed into the hands of strangers,
who as was usual on such occasions,
pledged themselves to leave the burial
ground undisturbed and to allow its former
owners access to it at all times.
Fifteen years passed away, and the rela-
tives of the dead man, grown rich in the
East, determined to disinter the body, re
move it to Long Island and bury 1T in
Greenwood cemetery. They came to Rich
mond, where | was still doing business in a
wretchedly reduced way, and commissioned
me to take the remains from the vault.
did so, and before they were shipped for the
East the widow expressed a desire to look
upon the face once more. | was satisfied
that the body was in good condition, so re-
moved the lid of the coffin as it lay in my
shop. The lady glanced at the contents,
and then, in a paroxysm of grief and anger,
she declared that l had made blunder
and that the body was not that of her late
husband.
''Of course l knew had not committed
any error, but I confess that at first | was
considerably staggered myself. On the
once smooth chin was growing a snow
white beard that reached almost to the feet
and flowed over to the sides of the corpse,
filling nearly all the space left in the coffin.
The clothes and a score of other evidences
convinced the children that they were look
ing at the remains of their father, but the
widow refused to be comforted until the
posthumous beard was shaved off, when she
at once recognized the face.
"The body is now in vault at Green
wood, and have no doubt that a luxuriant
crop OF hair again adorns the face. | hav
seen many cases of a similar kind, but none
in which the growth of the beard was SO
great as in this Onen ~